Posts Tagged ‘collaboration’


Posted on November 16, 2009 - by Vic Desotelle

collaborative design
Christian Fea asked:


(c) 2008 Christian Fea

Collaboration marketing is a specialized segment of relationship marketing?where, simply put, the relationships that a business has with its customers is developed for long-term sustainability. With the success of Internet businesses, competition for customers is fiercer than ever. Distinguishing your business from others by developing strong relationships with consumers is one strategy for securing clients.

Customer driven collaboration marketing falls under the realm or relationship marketing because it allows you to collaborate with clients to build relationships. The difference here is that customer driven collaboration marketing recognizes how the Internet has changed the relational dynamic between businesses and customers. Customers are more connected than they used to be, automatically making them more empowered and shifting the balance of power from business centered to customer centered. Customers hold more power than ever before.

Currently, computer and technology companies are embracing customer driven collaboration marketing, but the trend is beginning to filter into the mainstream. The companies who make use of customer driven marketing do so by offering customer designed packages and choices. Executed mostly by large companies, the trend for personalized products can also be utilized by smaller companies who embrace this marketing tool. Here are a few ideas to help get you started thinking in terms of customer driven collaboration marketing for your own business.

Collaborative Pricing – Collaborative pricing allows customers to become active participants in defining the prices that they want to pay and adapting prices and services to their changing needs. For instance, if you provide a service, collaborative pricing allows for customer flexibility with using and paying for this monthly service.

Collaborative Segmentation – Collaborative segmentation allows customers to configure offerings to suit their preferences and to self-select into segments that best suit their needs. If you are a manufacturing business, you can offer personalized selection in the building of a product so the customer gets specifically what they want.

Collaborative Communication – Collaborative communication lets companies work with customers to create “just-in-time” marketing communications that are relevant to customers. In this instance, companies contract with outside marketing firms to create contextual messages that are triggered by customer activity. This can also be helpful to get immediate feedback on a new product, allowing businesses to get a sense of the market for a new product at a lower cost, and much more quickly than by traditional means.

Collaborative Support – Collaborative support allows customers to dialogue directly with the company and amongst themselves to solve support and other problems. This allows businesses to reduce support costs while increasing customer satisfaction.

Customer driven collaboration marketing requires businesses to shift their focus from the typical outside-in thinking of company driven marketing to the inside-out thinking about their customers’ needs. This type of marketing focuses on finding products for existing customers and clients, rather than creating a product and seeking to find a market for it.



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Posted on October 9, 2009 - by Vic Desotelle

online collaboration
Maanasi RK asked:


Collaboration is a recursive process where intersection of common goals causes two or more people, or organizations, to work together.  Sharing knowledge and building consensus can enhance an intellectual and creative endeavor. Social Media is all about sharing. Sharing information, news, photos, videos… the list goes on. It is also about learning, listening and empathizing.

Jessica Chapman of Room to Breathe emphasizes the importance of collaborating with associates, vendors, suppliers, and people in other industries that complement a business’s overall need for growth.

Collaboration is important for any business or organization. As Chapman points out, “In a great economy, collaboration is a really good idea to do. In a down economy where people are freaking out about money and not sure where things are going to come, collaboration is a necessity.”

Here Jessica talks about the traditional market. But in an increasingly technology-driven world, how does one connect, how does one collaborate? Especially when the need to connect is even more imperative due to current market conditions. At present, the market is highly customer-centric. A customer today knows a lot more about products compared to a customer a decade ago, primarily due to easy access to a vast number of resources and information online. A consumer decides to purchase only after he or she completes a detailed research on the particular product or service. Listening to customers, understanding what they need and seeking feedback is how collaboration begins. And this can be accomplished by making use of social media networks. By being present in places where customers visit to research products is the first step in a social media plan.

As Maki says, “Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again.”

One needs to develop a strategy to build relationships with customers online. One needs to learn how to listen, empathize and connect with them. Having conversations are important. This leads to a better brand image for a company. Fuse lists the most important points to be followed while using social media and collaborating online:

·    Social media networking takes time

·    Strive to maintain legitimacy

·    Create and maintain a conversation with your consumer

·    Know when NOT to use social networking

When used wisely, a good plan can complement traditional channels and also build brand identity by focusing more on customers. In short, the most important activity for a company is to collaborate with the customer.



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Posted on January 27, 2009 - by Vic Desotelle

Validation Generates Deep Collaboration

picture 2 Validation Generates Deep Collaboration There are some things that do not need explanation. Want to feel real good at your next gathering or meeting? Then take time from your busy schedule and allow yourself to feel good for a couple minutes. Check out these two AWESOME videos. Play one of these at your next meeting or pow wow and watch the difference in the way people connect with each other. And the next day, try an experiment: See what comes as a result of validating each other.


Posted on November 28, 2008 - by Vic Desotelle

Collaboration: The Dance Between Inner and Outer Realities

So what’s real? And what influences it? Is it all withIN me where the control power lies? Or is it withOUT me? … And what the hec does this have to do with COLLABORATION ?

<p style=”text-align:left”><img src=”http://www.mi2g.com/cgi/mi2g/press/images/h_consciousness.jpg”/></p>
Some say to themselves; I have no power of my own and I am controlled by the outer world, and by the influence of other people, events, and circumstances – an outer perspective. Yet the guru’s say that we are makers of our own reality – an inner perspective. So, if you go within yourself, then all the power you need to change is there. Well I would hereby like to raise the B.S. flag.

From this guy’s mountain top view both are correct. It is not one or the other that brings us to Nirvana. It is the dance between the Inner and the Outer that IS the FULL reality. For my world, your fire’s reality is outside of me. Yet in your world, your life’s flame is within you. So inner and outer are very relative to whose doing the conscious perceiving, right?

So the new Story (I believe) will be based on the relationship between INNER and OUTER reality. Between what happens withIN me and at the same time what happens withOUT me. (Notice my use of the word ‘without’ is different that is normally used.)

Interesting that is what Collaboration is all about. It is an unfolding story of how you the individual and we the collective are considered and co-created together. Diversity is from the individual theme, and Unity is from the collective theme. And COLLABORATION is just another way to describe the dance that occurs between me and them, you and us, I and we.


Posted on October 6, 2008 - by Vic Desotelle

Vic on Team Building

Allow me to set the context for this section of my blog.

For me, team building is a highly important aspect of any organization’s development. Very few of you will argue me that.

However, I propose that it is rare to see team building as a process that is directly integrated into the work that needs to get done. Instead, team building is done using separate programs, like climbing trees together, or goofy games that create bonding. Yeah, it does that to an extent. But there is nothing better than a team that builds itself amidst the project they are working on – and doing that consciously together.

Now ‘that’ is the best way to build teams in my view.

It is a method that I emphasize strongly during the discovery process as I believe it is the way to fuel deeper forms of innovation. When team building is separate from the work at hand, it is harder to relate what happened when you were hanging 100 feet in the air from a rope when – back at the company – a statement is made by someone that just doesn’t make sense. How do you team with that?

Integrate team building with your project and get better more sustained results. Then go out and have some fun outside of the workplace together.